Ben Emmerson

Michael Benedict Emmerson CBE KC (born 30 August 1963) is a British barrister, specialising in public international law, human rights and humanitarian law, and international criminal law.

He attended Douai School and Bristol University, and was called to the bar in 1986.

In 1998, Emmerson successfully represented the claimants in the groundbreaking case of Osman v United Kingdom, a seminal decision of the European Court of Human Rights that first established the principle that a State owes a positive obligation to protect the right to life under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights from the criminal acts of a private individual.

The case concerned the fatal shooting of a man in London by a teacher who had become obsessed with the victim's son.

It was alleged that the police had failed to heed multiple warning signs, or take necessary action to prevent the murder, and that the British courts had failed to provide an effective remedy for the police negligence.

The Court held that the United Kingdom had violated the victims’ rights to a fair hearing through the grant of an effective legal immunity to the police, shielding them from legal liability in the tort of negligence, and awarded damages for the breach.

The following year, he successfully challenged the UK government's ban on homosexuals serving in the military, when he represented two homosexual members of British armed forces at the European Court of Human Rights.

The UK government was ordered to pay compensation and subsequently reversed its policy.

Until 1999 Emmerson was a member of Doughty Street Chambers, but in February 2000 he left to join the new Matrix Chambers which specialises in human rights.

In May 2000 he was appointed Queen's Counsel.

Emmerson's former clients include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (in connection with an attempt to extradite him to Sweden); GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun (who was prosecuted under the UK's Official Secrets Acts following the 2003 invasion of Iraq); and Marina Litvinenko (the wife of former Russian FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who was assassinated in London in 2006 using the radioactive isotope Polonium 210).

Emmerson also represented Abdelbasset al-Megrahi (the Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the Lockerbie bombing) in his appeal against conviction in Scotland, and subsequently acted for Abdullah Al-Senussi, the former head of national security to Colonel Gaddafi, in proceedings before the International Criminal Court.

Within the UK, Emmerson has been a deputy High Court Judge, a Master of the Bench of the Middle Temple, a visiting professor of international law and security at the University of Oxford, and an Honorary Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford.

In 2003, Emmerson represented Islamist cleric Abu Qatada, accused of being a member of Al-Qaeda, along with a number of inmates of Belmarsh Prison, at a joint hearing of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, challenging their indefinite detention, without charge or trial, on national security grounds.

The case (reported as A. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department), went to the House of Lords, which held that the indefinite detention of foreign terrorist suspects without trial was in breach of Articles 5 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that the UK's derogation from its obligations under the convention was invalid because it was discriminatory and disproportionate.

The decision established key principles about the relationship between the judiciary and the executive.

Lord Bingham, the Senior Law Lord, held that the House of Lords was entitled to overrule the decisions made by Government and Parliament in that case.

The case subsequently went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which upheld the decision of the House of Lords, adding that the secret nature of the procedure was unfair to the accused.

In a subsequent decision arising out of the same case, Emmerson successfully argued in the House of Lords that the detention of terrorist suspects could not be justified by reference to evidence obtained by acts of torture committed abroad by the agents of a foreign state.

Between 2005 and 2012, Emmerson successfully defended Ramush Haradinaj, the former Prime Minister of Kosovo, on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

From 2011 to 2017, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism.

Emmerson is currently an Appeals Chamber Judge of the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals sitting on the Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

He has previously served as Special Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Special Adviser to the Appeals Chamber of the ECCC (the UN-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia).

In his legal practice, Emmerson has acted for a number of foreign Governments in connection with international armed conflicts, including the Governments of Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia and Ukraine.

He has also represented several current and former heads of State and other political figures, including Mohammed Nasheed (former President of the Maldives); Ramush Haradinaj (former Prime Minister of Kosovo); Arseny Yatsenuk (former Prime Minister of Ukraine); and Carles Puigdemont (ex President of Catalonia).

He has appeared in numerous cases in the European Court of Human Rights, acting for and against the Government of the United Kingdom and other Council of Europe Member States, and has appeared in the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and other international courts and tribunals.

In June 2011, Emmerson was elected by the UN Human Rights Council as UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights.

His first thematic report, published in 2012, concerned the human rights of victims of terrorism.

The report was welcomed by Amnesty International.

He also produced reports on the use of armed drones for counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Palestine, accountability for the torture of terrorist suspects, human rights violations committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, electronic surveillance, terrorism and migration, the impact of national security measures on civil society, and the UN's counter-terrorism sanctions regime.

Emmerson is currently the British judge on the UN Mechanism of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

He has previously acted as Special Adviser to the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court and Special Adviser to the international judges of the UN backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia.

In 2016, he was awarded an honorary PhD from Bristol University.

In 2023, he represented Nicolás Maduro's government during Venezuela's appeal of the International Criminal Court investigation in Venezuela.

Born in Kent, his father Brian Emmerson was finance director of the Stock Exchange in London.

He held this mandate until July 2017.

In this capacity he reported annually to the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council and relevant entities established by the Security Council.

He also conducted country visits and reports, and provided technical and other advice to states.

He produced reports on the counter-terrorism policies of Saudi Arabia, Chile, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Burkina Faso.

In January 2019, he moved to Monckton Chambers.